CARNIVORE
by enderrushi
Summary: Left struggling to stay above water after witnessing his mother's horrific and sudden death, Eren (once a furious, intelligent and budding young Gryffindor) lashes out at everything and everyone. Determined to protect those he has left and assuage his guilt, Eren spirals toward a certain Professor at Hogwarts who is ordered to keep an eye on him. HogwartsxShingeki Ideky. LevixEren.
1. Prologue: let the bodies hit the floor

**_This crossover is weird, I'll admit. Even for me. But... HP4LYFEAMIRITE_**

* * *

 _Prologue_

"Jaeger!" I hear, my ears pricking at a familiar voice of exasperation and annoyance. I falter, my grip freezing on the guy I'm holding. The guy I'm beating into the dirt. The one with the filthy mouth. The one who hurt Armin. I let my fist fly anyway and punch him square in the mouth, bursting the skin of his lip, and sending him sprawling in the mud. I let go in disgust as he curls into the fetal position, his arms coiling to protect his stomach. That I just spent fifteen minutes kicking the hell out of. I straighten up, looking in the direction of the Professor that shouted my name.

Ackerman.

He looks at me, his grey eyes narrowing.

"My office." he says. He doesn't raise his voice, but that's how I know. Of course, I'm in trouble. He turns on his heel and walks off across the grounds, cloak billowing behind him. I scowl and look down at the piece of shit crawling across the squelching grass to his wand. I kick him in the shin for good measure, and then boot his wand a good distance away. I grab my messenger bag and sling it over me, following the footsteps of the vanished Professor Ackerman.

"Can dish it out, but he sure can't take it.." I mutter, wiping the throbbing side of my mouth where the prick had landed a lucky hit with the back of my hand. I quickly tear my hand away though, grimacing and wrinkling my nose in disgust; I just wiped that bastard's blood on my face. My knuckles are bloody, red and angry-looking. Mud and grass stains soil my shoes and trousers, my shirt's disheveled and my tie has been ripped loose from where the twat had tried to hold me down. I wipe the blood off my hands and suck my knuckles, trying to calm the skin. I enter the castle, stuffing my hands in my pockets, trying to look innocent and like I hadn't just been in a fight. I doubt it pulls off.

I make my way to Ackerman's office, slowing to an ungainly shuffle as I approach his door. But it opens before I reach it, like he can see through the wood. Professor Ackerman frowns at me, stepping back to let me pass. I don't move, inwardly wincing; waiting for the blow.

 _"In."_ He says. A tone of voice that I'll never be able to argue against. Or at least I know I won't win. I go in.

"So, Eren. Who was it this time, brat?" Ackerman closes the door, strides past me, behind his desk and nods for me to sit. He addressed every student like this. He wasn't big on formality. Or manners. Ackerman was blunt, and to the point. He voiced his opinion, and didn't care much for time-wasters or excuses.

I dump my bag beside the chair and collapse into the seat. I sit up straight though, my hands on the arm rests. But I look at my knees.

I sigh and mumble, "Edgar Pacinian."

"And let me guess. He had it coming."

I flush red with anger at his bored but sarcastic tone of voice. My eyes flicker to meet his.

 _"He did."_ I seethe. But Ackerman stares me down. He raises an eyebrow.

"I'm sure."

I look back to my knees.

"So you felt you had to resort to physical, muggle violence. Magic was too good for him, is that right?"

I nod. My skin still prickles, my fingers curl into fists.

"So you beat him to a bloody pulp, instead of informing a member of staff of the problem, or issuing a formal complaint of Mr Pacinian's behaviour."

"Exactly how many times is this, Eren?"

I whip my head back up to look at him, instantly on the defense.

"I've never even _touched_ the git before now."

"Language, Jaeger." Ackerman says drly, his fingers tapping against the desk. "And I'm not talking about Pacinian in particular. I'm talking about overall. This year. How many ah... _incidents_ you've had."

My nails bite into my palms. I try to keep my temper in check, but it's getting harder to breath. My insides feel like they're being twisted into spaghetti. Professor Ackerman opens a drawer in his desk suddenly, ruffles through it with slender fingers, before withdrawing a fawn-coloured, enveloped folder. It's thickness spans the width of Ackerman's desk. Sheaths of parchment are sticking out in places. He opens it in front of him, his eyes scanning down the first page. His index finger follows, stopping half-way down. He taps the parchment lightly.

 _"Four_ teen." He says, looking back to me. "Eight of which were serious."

I wrestle my fingers together, a swooping sensation sending my stomach through somersaults. I knew what was coming. Professor Ackerman shifts in his chair; I can hear him crossing his legs. He reaches for a cup of a steaming liquid on his desk. He sips from it, holding the porcelain cup in a bizarre manner, his left arm bending right-angles.

"You've been detained twice, suspended on four separate occasions, is it?" He glances back to the folder. "You've had counseling sessions with Madam Pomfrey that have had no effect whatsoever, I can see. And more detentions than I care to mention, none of which seem to prevent you from misbehaving and acting out." He sighs, closes the folder and rests ghostly, folded fingers over it. "We seem to have run out of preemptive measures."

I look back to him again, shame burning through my cold anger. Squirming through my body to singe my clothes. Shame at how Mikasa will react when I tell her I've been expelled. When I've had so many warnings. When all I did this time was protect my best friend from further hurt. I knew it would do no good to try and defend my actions though, the staff were all well aware of Pacinian's grueling, bullying nature. Didn't seem to do shit all about it though. So as soon as I spotted another bruise on Armin's delicate skin, I decided that enough was fucking enough. Once and for all. And now I'd be leaving him alone to deal with it. All by himself.

"Eren, you're unpredictable. You're volatile, moody, violent. Fiercely defensive and protective of what friends you have left. You can't keep your temper in check. You don't focus in your classes; your grades are slipping. In fact, they've already slipped. Fallen, in fact. Very low. They're awful. You clearly have an intelligent mind and you're a natural at wandwork. But you're unstable, and you've landed six people in the hospital wing and two more in St. Mungo's." Ackerman looked very much like he was enjoying himself, and I wanted to hit him. A sardonic smile was tugging at his lips, curling up to his grey eyes.

"Look, I get it. Just expel me already, will you? You don't have to keep on gloating." I burst, unable to hold it in anymore.

Professor Ackerman raised another eyebrow. His head tilted to the left, and his hands pressed against the sides of his desk so he leaned on his long arms.

"Did I say anything about expelling you?" he asks.

I stare at him. "No, but-"

"Perhaps I was misunderstanding your gloomy stature - do you _want_ to be expelled?"

" _No!_ I don't but-"

"-But nothing." He stood up. For such an intimidating and sharp person, Ackerman stood about an inch shorter than me. "The Headmaster has proposed one last attempt at managing your temper and complete lack of suitable social conduct for this school. Most likely out of sympathy for you; in your prolonged grieving state. If you fail this very last chance at finishing your education at Hogwarts, you _will_ be expelled. Do I make myself clear?"

His words stung, but I hurriedly nodded my head.

Ackerman cocked an eyebrow.

"Yes sir." I say quickly, and he carries on.

"Professor Dumbledore has _proposed,_ " his voice sharpened icily, "I give you private lessons, that will give you a better handling on your emotions and most of all, your temper."

"What kind of lessons?" I ask, dumbfounded that Ackerman is going to be teaching me privately.

Professor Ackerman eyes me, his gaze flickering up and down before settling on an answer. "Training, of a kind. I shall explain more at our first meeting. I'll let you know when exactly it'll be, I haven't organised my schedule yet." His tone was suggesting it was nearing my time to leave, so I stood and grabbed my bag.

"And I suppose.." Ackerman lingered a finger to his mouth thoughtfully, "Two weeks detention. Even though I doubt it will do any good."

 _"What?_ Two _weeks?"_

Professor Ackerman grins at me. "I can't exactly let your actions today go unpunished. Now, trundle off before I make it three weeks."

I scowl like thunder, storm towards the door but gratitude and relief weigh heavily in my heart.

"Oh and Eren?"

I look back, biting my lip. Waiting for another scolding, ready to dash out the door.

"Clean yourself up, you look revolting."


	2. If I Become My Demons

**_Part One:_** **TEAR YOU APART**

I wake early and groggily.

Darkness has swallowed me up, and I groan. I know I have to get up.

I grumble out a stream of mumbled and sleepy curses as I fight with my bedcovers. Winning, I swing my legs out of my four-poster bed, but then trip on the hem of the curtains that I'd forgotten I pulled around me last night. That explained the swollen darkness enveloping me like the gullet of some enormous monster bastard. I wrench the red material apart furiously, squirm out of my pajamas and then pull on my school robes. They'd been freshly washed and pressed, folded on my trunk; a new red and gold striped tie wiggled to my attention beside them. _Thank Merlin for house-elves,_ I sigh sleepily. Sitting on my bed to tie my shoe laces, I glance up to the poster bed opposite my own. Armin's hidden from view, buried in his sheets, but I can tell he's sleeping soundly by the mess of pale golden hair, tangled in a tumbleweed on his pillow.

I fasten my watch around my wrist as it stubbornly ticks toward six o'clock; little ebony hands dancing to their destiny with a rhythmic pulse. I wished my body ran like clockwork instead of burning _full speed ahead!_ like a naked flame; open and raw, happily chugging along its spindly candle wick, so erratic in its flickering - so capable of hurt and smoke; so easily changing tracks with just a mere twitch of the track-switcher. Stretching, I groan with pleasure as my muscles flex taut and then relax. Suddenly I feel like jelly. But I can make it work. I head out the boys dormitories early, lugging a bag full of so much weight ( _so_ many books), it feels like an anchor weighing me down. I needed to do some very last-minute work for my lessons this week. This morning, whatever. What with my bloody detentions taking up my evenings, and my determination to watch Armin like a hawk (to make sure Pacinian and his cronies were leaving him the _hell_ alone), I didn't have time to waste dithering about with homework. My head was already too full, never mind trying to stuff bullshit about Venomous Tentacula and Non-Verbal Spells in there too. I left the Gryffindor common room, wishing I could doze in one of the armchairs by the fire; I always felt most at ease and at home there. It reminded me of _my_ home. But that home was gone now, snatched away from me as easily as snuffing out a candle. All they had to do was kill my mother. I scoff bitterly, feeling the familiar hateful spark of guilty pain rear in my chest. I try to ignore the desperation and hopelessness that washes through my body again; that feeling continued to creep up on me without me noticing. But when it hit, it crashed over me like a breathtaking wave. And its icy chill always left me gasping. I pinch the skin on the back of my hand now, _hard_. And the sharp pain works, it slowly diminishes the hurt. I swallow the sudden lump in my throat.

Grief, I've learned, is a sneaky bastard. It creeps up on you when you least expect it. And it's like I lost her all over again. My mother. My family. My home. But it makes me angry now, angry at myself. Now my memories of her, and of home, were growing hazy. Slipping away like the blurry details of a dream I once had. It was like trying to hold water in the palms of my hands; no matter how tightly I cup my fingers together, the liquid seeps through my epidermis like flour through a siv. And it drives me insane. It's why I can't sleep, more often than not. Torturing myself; I struggle to remember the good - but the bad blares in my head as soon as the sun goes down. It echoes behind my eyes, scorched into my brain. Images and sounds I can never forget. Never banish from my mind.

I will always hear her screams.

I didn't save her.

And every night, it's the same. Every time, I only watch. Powerless, my legs dead weight. Glued to the ground. As she thrashes, struggles, _screams._

It even took me a while to stop flinching when anyone called my name. Every time, I heard it screamed, bloody and raw in their throats, as their lips moved with a voice of absolute agony. With the voice of my mother.

The nightmares would never end. And in some messed up part of me, the part that never stops feeling sick, tight, and hot. The part that burns and twists and cries through my veins like a wildfire. In that fucked up void of myself, I didn't want them to. _I_ was guilty. _It was my fault_. _My_ fault she's dead. I killed her.

I didn't save her.

I deserve to relive it every night. That would be my punishment. A lifetime of agony. To reflect her final seconds of terrifying fear.

At times I felt my stomach coil, in a furious and jittery knot that never relaxed. And all it took was the slightest irritation, or provocation, and that knot wrenched on my insides, squeezing my body so taut with pain I would think I'd burst. Either that or pass out. But I have a tendency to get angry when I get hurt. And that would be when I blow up like a volcano. I'd feel such rage and _loss_ fire through me, and I'd go blind. Blind to everything. And when it was over, whatever it was I had done, I would come to. Feel this hollow emptiness in my bones. In my head, in my soul, in everything I saw. I wouldn't _feel._ And it's an effort to stay on my feet, I kind of go limp. Broken.

My mother was murdered. I watched it happen. Right in front of me. My father's still missing. Still gone. And something had happened to my magic. I returned to Hogwarts after it happened a different person. Everything was different. Including my magic. I couldn't use it. I still can't, not properly. Those first few weeks, I thought I had become a muggle. No matter how hard I tried, or how simple the spell, my wand just wouldn't work. But now it's like my body is out of sync with my wand. Like the invisible thread that knit the two together is severed, broken. It had snapped, and unraveled. Ollivander had told me, back when I was a grizzly eleven year old, that the wand is simply an instrument through which wizards channel their magic. So if it wasn't my wand misbehaving (and practically all of my teachers have run all kind of tests and diagnostics on the blasted thing that said it's not), then the problem had to come from me. I'm the problem. The broken piece. Or the missing piece.

Grief, I had read, and shock could do strange things to wizards. And to their magic. Casting spells are no longer easy for me, and on a good day I can do four out of the every ten the rest of my classmates can perform. But most days, it's like someone has pressed the mute button on my wizardry. On what makes me, me. Some Slytherin pricks call me _muggle_ behind my back. And often to my face. But then it would go off, and everyone left standing (or blasted onto their back in the dirt) would have absolutely no doubt in their mind that I'm a wizard. _Motherfuckers._ It goes off like a bomb; my wand would suddenly be in my hand and I wouldn't even remember pulling it out of my robes. I wouldn't remember what curse I'd fired, what spell came streaming, blazing out of my wand to set the world on fire. I wouldn't remember if I said an incantation, or if I just reacted instinctively. And of course I know my magic is directly tied to my emotions. But that doesn't make it any easier to control - I _can't_ control myself; it is like I have to learn all over again. Like I'm an out of control first year in the body of sixteen year old.

Though I have been getting better at reigning it in, no matter what anyone says. I use my fists, instead of letting my mind and magic billow in the wind, gathering speed and strength. I leave my wand the hell alone in my pocket, and I _leave_ it alone. But time, and time again ( _fourteen, for fucks sake_ ) my temper flares - mostly because of Pacinian and his filthy motley crew - and now I have to deal with the consequences.

But I have to hold it together; glue the pieces back together so no one notices. I don't know why I bother though, it's not like anyone believes it. Or even cares. The cracks were starting to show. I swear, the cracks and fractures, _fissures_ were all anyone could see sometimes. They forget I'm a real person, that I'm not made of china; that I'm still Eren. Not this scary Muscovite they have to tiptoe around. I think that's what sets me off most of the time - either people being dicks, or people not being _normal_ around me.

Armin told me, a few weeks back, that people act different around me because they think _I'm_ different. That I've changed. That they sometimes can't _see_ me, the _old me._ That they strain to see the old Eren through my diamond skin. Armin said they're scared that all it would take is one tap of a sharp finger, and I would shatter.

To be honest though, _people_ are right. I am different, I am changed. You try watching your mother being murdered right in front of you, and see if that alters your perceptions on life. On bullshit people.

You try being the reason your family is dead.

Armin and Mikasa. They're the only family I have left now. But Mikasa is the only one who really gets it. But Mikasa is miles away.

I slip into the library, keeping my head down. If I didn't look for trouble, maybe it wouldn't find me - but it usually does. I take a table near the back, hidden from prying eyes amongst the stacks of leather-bound books. Dumping my bag of pain _whymygodjesuschristthathurt_ on the mottled wooden desk, I find my Potions and Transfiguration work and set it out in front of me, smoothing the crumpled edges. I really should take better care of my books, or I'd have Armin jumping down my throat.

Written work, essays and the like (as horrible as it sounds) are one of the things I'm most thankful for. Writing I can do. Easy. But practical work - once so fluent and natural to me - it's like trying to pat my head and rub my tummy _and_ cook an omelette at the same time. One with bacon and mushrooms in it. Suffice it to say, it is difficult. And _some_ times my frustration gets the better of me, resulting in the decimation of my surroundings. And sometimes in the decimation of people's eyebrows. I'd then be sent to Professor McGonagall's office, or to Dumbledore's, or the hospital wing depending on how bad it was. No one ever has much to say except _Detention_ and the usual _Control. Your. Temper._

Easier fucking said than fucking done. Let them try having no control over their magic, after five years of splashing around and reveling in it. See if they get frustrated. Gits.

I yawn widely, stretching my arms above my head. My shoulders click delightfully in their sockets and I groan tiredly. I need a good night's sleep. I gather up my now-finished essays and attempt to delicately stuff them into my bag; my quill snaps in the process. Scowling curses, I fling it back into the grimy depths and screw the lid onto my inkpot safely before flinging that in too. I yawn again and glance at my watch, **_eight o'clock._**

Bloody teachers better appreciate the length of these essays. I bite my lips bitterly. All this frigging extra work because I can't fucking use my magic. I dig out my timetable and examine today's lessons; double Defense Against The Dark Arts, Potions, and Herbology in one morning. Urgh, that means two hours first thing of casting Non-Verbal Spells. Or rather, trying and failing to cast them. I couldn't even do it _with_ the incantations, never mind silently willing the stupid spell to work. I don't even know why my Professors include me in practical lessons; it never works, and it never ends well. But I know I'll have no chance of sitting out the lesson with Professor Ackerman teaching it. One grey look and I'll know I have two choices - _do the work or do the detentions for two months._

My stomach begins its morning irate groaning and grumblings. I gather my things and head to the Great Hall for some breakfast. I hope Armin has gotten his butt out of bed. At least I'd have someone to talk to that didn't snigger or glare at me. I really don't want to ruin another set of robes... Plus Filch has only just gotten rid of the scorch marks left in the hall - and if he set Mrs. Norris to tailing me again. . . I'd vowed to kick her into next year. Vengeful squib for an owner or not.

 _Now I have to take private lessons from Ackerman.._

I frown. Who knew what Professor Ackerman was planning on teaching me. And why _him?_ Ackerman has always ruffled my feathers. I've never felt entirely at ease around him.

It's always like he knows something you don't.

And he finds it _hilarious_ that you don't know.

But hey, if it keeps me from being expelled. I'll gobble up any chance I get.

* * *

 ** _thank you for reading!_**


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